David Lodge Read Online Free PDF

a peculiar look on her face, goes to the fridge in their room and drinks a bottle of Perrier water before she tells him her story. She says that Antoine intercepted her downstairs to present her with a bouquet. It seems that each week all the male staff of the hotel take a vote on which female guest has the shapeliest breasts, and Brenda has come top of the poll. The bouquet was a mark of their admiration and respect. She is distressed because she left it behind in Antoine's room.
    “Antoine's room?”
    “Yes, he coaxed her into seeing his room, a little chalet in the woods, and gave her a drink, and one thing led to another, and she ended up letting him make love to her.”
    “How improbable.”
    “Not necessarily. Taking off her bra in public might have released some dormant streak of wantonness in Brenda that Harry had never seen before. Anyway, she's rather drunk and quite shameless. She taunts him with graphic testimony to Antoine's skills as a lover, and says he is much better endowed than Harry.”
    “Worse and worse,” said the author's wife.
    “At which point Harry slaps her.”
    “Oh, nice. Very nice.”
    “Brenda half undresses and crawls into bed. A couple of hours later, she wakes up. Harry is standing by the window staring down at the empty pool, a ghostly blue by the light of the moon. Brenda gets out of bed, comes across and touches him on the arm. Come to bed , she says. It wasn't true what I told you . He turns his face slowly towards her. Not true? He says. No, I made it up , she says. I went and sat in the car for two hours with a bottle of wine and I made it up. Why? he says. I don't know why , she says. To teach you a lesson, I suppose. I was fed up with you. But it was a stupid idea. Come to bed . But Harry just shakes his head and turns back to stare out of the window. You always used to say size didn't matter , he says. Well, it doesn't, not to me , she says. I told you, I made it all up . Harry just shakes his head disbelievingly, gazing down at the blue, breastless margins of the pool. That's how the story was going to end: 'he gazed down at the blue, breastless margins of the pool.' “
    As he spoke these words, the author was himself standing at the window, looking down at the hotel pool from which all the guests had departed to change for dinner. Only the solitary figure of Pierre moved among the umbrellas and tables, collecting discarded bathing towels and soiled teatrays.
    “Hmm,” said the author's wife.
    “Harry's fixation on women's breasts, you see,” said the author, “has been displaced by an anxiety about his own body from which he will never be free.”
    “Yes, I see that. I'm not totally without critical acumen, you know.” The author's wife came to the window and looked down. “Poor Pierre,” she said. “He wouldn't dream of making a pass at any of us women. He's obviously gay.”
    “Fortunately, said the author, “I hadn't got that far with my story when the wind scattered it all over the countryside. But you'd better get out the Michelin and find another hotel. I can't stand the thought of staying on here on tenterhooks all the time in case one of the guests comes back from a walk in the woods with a compromising piece of fiction in their paws. What an extraordinary thing to happen.”
    “You know,” said the author's wife. It's really a better story.”
    “Yes,” said the author. “I think I'll write it. I'll call it 'Tit for Tat'.”
    “No, call it ‘Hotel des Boobs',” said the author's wife. “Theirs and yours.”
    “What about yours?”
    “Just leave them out if it, please.”
    Much later than night, when they were in bed and just dropping off to sleep, the author's wife said:
    “You don't really wish I would go topless, do you?”
    “No, of course not,” said the author. But he didn't sound entirely convinced, or convincing.

 
A Wedding to Remember
     
    E mma Dobson, everyone who knew her agreed, was a young woman of strong character.